Paradise Lost Books 2-3

Milton really loves his epic similes. In Book 3, Satan is compared with a scout who surveys the enemy’s camp at night (3.543-587). The scout climbs hills (line 546) and sees an amazing city (line 549). Within the scout simile, Milton uses another simile to describe the beautiful islands the scout sees in the distance. The descriptions are gorgeous and flowery and very poetic, but I find them really distracting from the work as a whole. Reading these 44 lines, I forgot what Milton was even talking about until he mentions “Fiend” and then I remember, oh yeah, Satan… (line 588). It’s a fabulous description, but a little over the top for my modern tastes; perhaps a reader from the Renaissance or one with more refined tastes would enjoy a Homeric simile like this.
This is going to read strange, but I don’t really like God. Let me clarify: I don’t really like Milton’s God. In Book 3, He knows that “Man will hearken to his [Satan’s] glozing lies And easily transgress the sole command” (lines 93-94). I don’t think this statement applies only to the transgression in the garden. I read this generalization and believe Milton’s God has little hope in humanity emerging into a moral civilization. Maybe we never did, from His point of view. Consider Sodom and Gomorrah. Even now, Darfur is certainly not the prime example of the good within humanity. But I have to live with the hope that perhaps someday, the world will be a better place. I can do my part and influence those in my part of the world to be better. Maybe then Milton’s God will not assume my behavior is because I “hearken to his glozing lies.”